The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
In typical communication applications, text-based messages in a communication session (such as an instant message, short message service message, or social network message/posting) are presented chronologically in a list in a graphical user interface of the communication application displayed by a computing device. The use of such a chronologically ordered list may have a number of limitations, especially when there are a large number of messages to be displayed. A communication session may include many messages that were sent over a long period of time (days, weeks, etc.). In order for a user to find a previously sent message of interest, the user may have to scroll through the list of messages, and scan the contents of each of the messages to locate the desired message (or collection of messages). In some situations, the user may remember an approximate date/time of the message of interest, which may be used to narrow the possible locations of the message of interest for the user. Nonetheless, even when the user has a general idea of the approximate date and time of a message of interest, locating the specific message of interest may be a time consuming and bothersome process.